Talk:Martial arts/Archive1

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Examples

Examples of woo? Mei (talk) 01:47, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, it's on mission. I don't think martial arts itself is woo, but there is a lot of associated woo floating around, especially ninja woo (hey, why's that still a redlink?!), some of the mystical beliefs like chi, and of course anytime martial arts shades over into paramilitary fantasy land. There are some ludicrous books on subjects like "mind control" and "how to become invisible" in the martial arts section. Secret Squirrel (talk) 02:05, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

not so much the concept of chi as the supposed "powers" chi can grant you (excellerated healing, no touch knockouts, chi balls etc) not to mention some of the ideas in several arts. for example, tai chi practicioners advocate striking anything as the vibrations damage the mucles in your eyes which destroys your eyesight--BenB (talk) 02:27, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

On mission enough IMO - David Gerard (talk) 21:54, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Its a work in progress. I have limited time and little to no wiki skills. I just added some more stuff about woo however. Feel free to contribute if you know anything about martial arts--BenB (talk) 16:39, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I did Taekwondo for a couple of years. On two occasions the blocks I learnt allowed me to not get hit long enough to run away. So it's not completely useless - at least not for me.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 20:34, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

The "Problem"

Here's why I deleted the section.

"The trouble with martial arts in the civilised age is that it has become detached from the harsh feedback of reality. You can learn fighting techniques, but almost no-one doing so is actually having to use their skills in real life on a daily basis. There are endless tales of martial artists of high rank getting their asses handed to them when attacked in the streets, because they basically learnt a stylised form rather than anything still connected to actual fighting."

This assumes that the purpose of modern-day martial arts is self defense, which is debatable. Most modern martial arts are presented by credible instructors as sports. The other issue is that the last sentence is just as true of people who learn dedicated "self defense" techniques.

"One interesting counterforce to this is mixed martial arts, in which the various schools and forms actually get tested against each other."

This is false - mixed martial arts doesn't really pit various schools against each other, virtually all mixed martial artists now cross train in several schools and so their "forms" are very very similar. This might be referring to competitions between members of different styles rather than MMA, but since the bodies governing martial arts competitions generally only cover one style, it's really uncommon and isn't MMA as it now exists.

— Unsigned, by: ORavenhurst / talk^{Do You Believe That?} 11:07, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to me. Since most of it is as "sport", there's not much sense in saying it's a load of cobblers because they can't win in street fights. It'd be like complaining that people who do agility tricks with footballs can't be that good because they're not signed for Premiership teams - it's just beside the point. ^bomination 11:39, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

People do learn this stuff thinking it'll help them k1ck @$$, though, and that's dangerously wrong. I mean, they don't sign up for it thinking "gosh - football, soccer, tennis or karate?" I'm also not convinced you can No True Scotsman people's motivations over to McDojo - David Gerard (talk) 12:17, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

That's how it worked when I was in elementary school. In China and Japan that's how it works as well. I'm not sure I understand how No True Scotsman applies here, either. My point above, is that is this article supposed to be about people who seek out martial arts? Then the above works, but as its written it's not about that at all, it's making claims about martial arts as a discipline based wholly on a group of overexcited adolescents. — Unsigned, by: ORavenhurst / talk^{Do You Believe That?} 14:38, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

That's scary. Self defense is one thing. Just wanting to learn how to kick ass is another. I was raised learning that Martial arts is the physical and mental training of the body. I don't want to say 'spirit'...but that's what most people believe. I'll say...'conscience' instead. It's knowing your own body enough to know when or how to protect yourself, or use yourself as a weapon. But the main thing is self-control and discipline. Not beating someone up to a bloody pulp...and now I've ranted.--Dumpling (talk) 15:58, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

In conventional thinking, martial arts == self-defence. You could say "perish the thought, no true martial arts school would act in any manner as if they knew this!" but I would find that a tad disingenuous. And the stuff did in fact start as a method of kicking arses - David Gerard (talk) 23:05, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Citation needed for "convention thinking" - also highly geographically dependent. Nobody's saying "no true martial arts school would ...". There are, in fact, major international or national governing bodies for martial arts. Shouldn't we be basing the article on what these organizations say? — Unsigned, by: ORavenhurst / talk^{Do You Believe That?} 14:28, 23 August 2012 (UTC)